Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Joe Biden says it's time fascism
Speaker 1: is called fascism and Americans know exactly what they're voting for.
Speaker 1: He's right. We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 1: Author Ben Mesick stops by to talk about his new book,
Speaker 1: Breaking Twitter, Elon Musk and the most controversial corporate takeover
Speaker 1: in history. Oh, by the way, it's gotten worse. Then
Speaker 1: we'll talk to the editor of the Nevada Independent, John Ralston.
Speaker 1: But first we have the host of the Time of Monsters,
Speaker 1: the Nation's git here. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics. Jed here.
Speaker 2: Good to be back on the program.
Speaker 1: You are my favorite. I am so excited that we
Speaker 1: have you. It is, you know, the run ups of Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: I wanted you back here for any number of reasons
Speaker 1: you're might go to in all things Canada. Just kidding.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's like the meanest thing. No, Canada is
Speaker 1: great and we love it and it matters a lot
Speaker 1: in the world, but just not right now. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about where we are right
Speaker 1: now in this like I feel like we're at the
Speaker 1: end of primary season, except there were no primaries.
Speaker 2: Discuss Yeah, on both sides, there were no primaries. I
Speaker 2: mean on the Republican side, you kind of have this
Speaker 2: like farcical situation where Trump is just so far ahead,
Speaker 2: you know, he doesn't even need to debate, and that
Speaker 2: turned out to be a smart strategy on his part.
Speaker 2: It's a snow white in the Seven Dwarves. Snow White
Speaker 2: is the star. That's Trump, and the little seven Dwarves
Speaker 2: bottom ercs themselves and they all lost, and they all lost,
Speaker 2: they all lost. I mean, there's a big push now
Speaker 2: to say, well, Nikki Haley is on the rise and
Speaker 2: she's a credible opponent to Trump, and their best palling
Speaker 2: is in New Hampshia, where she's like thirty points behind Trump,
Speaker 2: right like she's a toy. And then New Upter is
Speaker 2: like exceptional among Republicans because it's a more liberal state
Speaker 2: and her and Chris Christia are doing well there. But
Speaker 2: that's not the Republican electorate like anywhere else. Certainly in
Speaker 2: Iowa she's not getting anywhere at But conversely, I mean,
Speaker 2: the one reason she's on the rise is that you
Speaker 2: know Ron DeSantis is going down. He's actually like fourth
Speaker 2: in New Hampshire, which is like amazing. All the seven
Speaker 2: dwarves are basically candidates put up forward by some billionaire
Speaker 2: thinking you'd be lice to own a president, and then
Speaker 2: maybe Trump won't get it, and they're all faltering. There's
Speaker 2: really no contest on the Republican side except maybe the
Speaker 2: contest for being Vice president viiic Ramaswami might be an
Speaker 2: interesting kind of picked just because he has some of
Speaker 2: that Trump energy and he had a brief bubble which
Speaker 2: is already bursted. So yeah, I don't actually see anyone
Speaker 2: on the Tim Scott got a girlfriend where a few
Speaker 2: days just photographed with a live.
Speaker 1: Human with a lady.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, and this will be the only
Speaker 2: achievement of these want to be Trump said, you know
Speaker 2: Tim Scott's very brief flirtation with human sexuality. Now on
Speaker 2: the Democratic side, I mean, the same thing has kind
Speaker 2: of happened. I mean, like, on the one hand, there's
Speaker 2: a considerable number of Democrats who actually are not that
Speaker 2: enthusiastic about Biden being the nominee. But the one thing
Speaker 2: that keeps them going is that, like there's no credible alternative, right.
Speaker 1: There's no way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, like William said, I know, friend
Speaker 2: of the family.
Speaker 1: Pause the tape here, we're gonna this a low blow
Speaker 1: from get here. My first cousin who I haven't spoken
Speaker 1: to in years and years and years, Peter daw was
Speaker 1: briefly her campaign manager. Thank you, friend of the Family's cheat.
Speaker 2: Sorry about that, Peter Daw. How many people as even
Speaker 2: campaign manager as far so we both like campaign manager.
Speaker 2: We believe where Cornell was.
Speaker 1: Yes, everyone who can hurt Biden has it one time
Speaker 1: employed my first cousin, Peter.
Speaker 2: Da No, No, I'd have to say this is my
Speaker 2: ga because we're dad had worked for Hillary Clinton, another
Speaker 2: winning candidate. So I have to say that my working
Speaker 2: theory is that he is actually the greatest sleepers hell
Speaker 2: agent in the history of American politics.
Speaker 1: I'm only laughing to keep from crying. But yes, I
Speaker 1: think that's for sure true.
Speaker 2: So yeah, no, no, Williams, it isn't happening. Cornell was like,
Speaker 2: you know, jump from party to party, like you know
Speaker 2: that a French party moved to the Greens. He's not
Speaker 2: throwing the Greens. He's gonna run some sort of campaign
Speaker 2: where like there's no chance he'll be on any ballad
Speaker 2: and RFK Junior, like, you know, he's running a great
Speaker 2: campaign if you want to be a Republican, he actually
Speaker 2: could have. I think if he had actually run as
Speaker 2: a Republican, he actually might have had the best shot
Speaker 2: against Trump. Like I think he has some of that
Speaker 2: like celebrity wacko energy, and there's enough sort of like
Speaker 2: boomers that types have some memory of, like Kennedy, it
Speaker 2: had been Democrats and there is some of that, like
Speaker 2: you know, old counterculture crowd that has moved because of
Speaker 2: qan On and because of COVID has moved to the top.
Speaker 2: He could have had a credible run. But in any case,
Speaker 2: who the hell knows what he's doing?
Speaker 1: Is he so wary as a Democrat he'smoothed into being
Speaker 1: an independent, But the reality is he will act as
Speaker 1: a spoiler. Maybe he knows this, maybe he doesn't care.
Speaker 1: As someone who had the experience of being on the
Speaker 1: wrong side of him in Austin when he tried to
Speaker 1: hackle my interview with doctor Peter hot has the TLDR
Speaker 1: I got from seeing him and the way he acted
Speaker 1: towards me and towards doctor hoo does is that he's
Speaker 1: basically a member of the al right at this point.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right as such. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, the one interesting thing about him is he
Speaker 2: might actually be a spoiler, but maybe a spoiler for
Speaker 2: the Republican right.
Speaker 1: They're getting nervous now.
Speaker 2: There are people in the Trump camp that are worried
Speaker 2: that he's going to take more votes from them than Biden.
Speaker 2: And I think that that seemed very plausible. But in
Speaker 2: any case, on the democratics idea, no plausible opposition has emerged.
Speaker 2: I mean, like what could if very think that something
Speaker 2: could happen, just because usually if you have a Democrat
Speaker 2: that's unpopular, like Linda Johnson sixty eight or Jimmy Carter
Speaker 2: and Edie, you do have some opposition figure within the
Speaker 2: party that emerges. But in both those cases that ended
Speaker 2: up like electing Republicans. And I actually think that the Democrats,
Speaker 2: the actual plausible Democrats who could have run against Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: none of them have. That's pretty significant, I mean.
Speaker 1: Kind of an endorsement of Joe Biden in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways.
Speaker 2: Well see a year from now whether the wisdom of that,
Speaker 2: but it is the fact that the party, the elected officials,
Speaker 2: and anyone who's a plausible Democratic candidate has not run
Speaker 2: against Joe Biden, that there is no primary on that
Speaker 2: end either.
Speaker 3: Apologies to miss Williamson.
Speaker 1: One of the things I want to talk to you about,
Speaker 1: which I think is so relevant and important here I
Speaker 1: have this theory I want to sort of talk to
Speaker 1: you about because you and I I think of us
Speaker 1: as Internet people. Right, we live there, you know, we
Speaker 1: live in our homes with our spouses, but we also
Speaker 1: really live on the Internet. One of the things with
Speaker 1: these bad polls is that we see that the person
Speaker 1: who kills it in these polls is the generic D. Right,
Speaker 1: they are the person who kills it. And in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: the person who got the nomination was the generic D
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Joe Biden's his favorability numbers are low, very low,
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton level low. Do you think that part of
Speaker 1: what happened and part of what Biden World needs to
Speaker 1: do is they need to fill the vacuum. So, for example,
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden is on the cover of the New York
Speaker 1: Post every day for two weeks. Right, Hunter's laptop, Hunters, this, Hunters, Hookers, Hunters,
Speaker 1: this hunter's that, and there's no one in Biden world
Speaker 1: going like, look, Avanka's husband, Jared manages two billion dollars
Speaker 1: for Mohammed ben Salmon. How did he meet Mohammad bin Salmon.
Speaker 1: Let us take a moment and pause. Oh, when he
Speaker 1: brought peace to the Middle East. Here's what's not happening
Speaker 1: peace in the Middle East. Here's what is happening. Jared
Speaker 1: carried interest on two billion dollars.
Speaker 2: Discuss It is absolutely the case that Biden as president,
Speaker 2: you know, like, is not able to command the stage.
Speaker 2: And that's like give were for a bunch of reasons.
Speaker 2: I think partially it's also like a decision on their end. Likely,
Speaker 2: you know, like I think that they did buy the
Speaker 2: theory that you know, like Biden won because he was banal,
Speaker 2: because he would allow people to have brunch and he
Speaker 2: would restore calmness to politics and not be like, you know,
Speaker 2: tweeting all the time. He would be the anti Trump, right.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's why he won, And I
Speaker 2: certainly think that the Democrats will won since Biden haven't
Speaker 2: won on the strategy of like keeping things calm and
Speaker 2: like being invisible, Like I think Democrats have like as
Speaker 2: they had a lot of success in the both the
Speaker 2: mid terms and the slash elections, and it usually comes
Speaker 2: from being sort of fear sleep partisan. But I mean,
Speaker 2: I think said that the thing is it'll come down.
Speaker 2: I think if it's like Trump versus Biden, there, you know,
Speaker 2: might be an issue. And I have to remind people
Speaker 2: like twenty twenty was close. It was not close in
Speaker 2: the popular vote, but actually in the terms of the
Speaker 2: electoral college victory, it was closer than twenty sixteen. Well,
Speaker 2: like you know, like forty thousand votes in three states
Speaker 2: would have given us like a second Trump presidency. Now,
Speaker 2: but on the generic question, Democrats are better and so
Speaker 2: there are ways in which this can become and I
Speaker 2: think it is going to become not Biden versus Trump,
Speaker 2: but Democrats versus Republicans. First of all, the Democrats actually,
Speaker 2: I think have a great bench. People don't realize this,
Speaker 2: but I mean, like there's just a lot of good
Speaker 2: Democratic talent instead of the governors and also among this senators.
Speaker 2: So like if you make it, if you bring out there,
Speaker 2: you know, all the heavy hitters, which I think actually
Speaker 2: also happened in twenty twenty, Like if you actually saw
Speaker 2: who was campaigning, like you know, like Obama and Ernie,
Speaker 2: and you know they were kept I think as much
Speaker 2: as Videns.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Okay, So we imagine a scenario next year where there's
Speaker 2: indications the White House Watson were in a front porch
Speaker 2: campaign not have biding out there a lot, but you
Speaker 2: could have, you know, if you have Obama, Bernie Elizabeth, Warren, Whitmore, Warnock, Newsome,
Speaker 2: like put everyone, the whole team out there and make
Speaker 2: it like the key issues, you know, domestically are abortion.
Speaker 2: Like a vote for Trump is a vote for a
Speaker 2: party that you know, like actually is still committed to
Speaker 2: like a federal abortion ban, which is like hugely unpopular.
Speaker 2: I think that gets you a lot of the way there.
Speaker 2: And I have to say, you know, like we don't
Speaker 2: want to talk about form folacy, but look, I think
Speaker 2: a lot of ways the foreign policy, whatever else you
Speaker 2: can say about it, is a bit of a distraction
Speaker 2: because you know, the more time that takes up on
Speaker 2: the front page of the headlines. I think one piece
Speaker 2: of bad luck is like the foreign policy dominates, and
Speaker 2: then like everything that's happened to Trump in terms of
Speaker 2: all the court cases and all the information that's come
Speaker 2: out about Trump in the last few weeks. It hasn't
Speaker 2: been in the headline, it hasn't circulated. I mean it's
Speaker 2: when the headlines like in the back of the newspaper.
Speaker 2: It hasn't been something that's been really taken up. And
Speaker 2: so I mean, I think a lot will depend on
Speaker 2: if there's like some of these like foreign pality crises.
Speaker 2: I diffused. I think Biden will be in a much
Speaker 2: better place because it will then become you know, Democrats
Speaker 2: versus Republicans, or even Democrats versus Trump. It is that said,
Speaker 2: it'll be a Trump viized GOP. I think you can
Speaker 2: win on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's interesting. I mean the idea here though,
Speaker 1: the importance here is that if you allow a vacuum,
Speaker 1: a news vacuum, then it gets filled, and it gets
Speaker 1: filled with people like Jack Pasopiak and the Breitbart crew.
Speaker 1: This is the brave new, completely unregulated world of social media.
Speaker 1: There is no one coming to tell the truth, right.
Speaker 1: The truth is whatever people are seeing in a headline.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the really sad state of things.
Speaker 1: And I think what's really scary to me, as a
Speaker 1: person who really dwells there is that we're seeing there
Speaker 1: is no fact check what Elon Musk has done very successfully.
Speaker 1: It may have been intentional, it may not have been intentional,
Speaker 1: but he has removed all of the fact checks. You know,
Speaker 1: they do have community notes, but again you can get
Speaker 1: noted for things that may or may not be true.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's a very mixed thing. Well, I mean
Speaker 2: in terms of well, whether Musk was deliberate, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think he's just an idiot to shut off his
Speaker 2: mouth but ended up in controlling Twitter. But you know,
Speaker 2: once he controls twueter, he wants to make it his
Speaker 2: own end. But there are other people. I mean, we're
Speaker 2: seeing a huge sort of right wing push to build
Speaker 2: on the brief fire model. Yeah, they're creating all these
Speaker 2: like faked news sites. They're buying Univision, you know, like
Speaker 2: one of the main outlets with Spanish speaking Americans get
Speaker 2: their news, you know, like is now controlled by the right.
Speaker 1: And you need those voters, Well.
Speaker 2: We need those words. Yeah, Unfortunately. I mean the thing is,
Speaker 2: if we're talking about the the big media outlets, like
Speaker 2: you know, the Democrats are outgunned simply by the fact
Speaker 2: that you know, they're more Republican billionaires they're more invested
Speaker 2: in creating this media for a start care yeah case
Speaker 2: something like if you remember aar America from like twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, there's a casal due you know, but it's
Speaker 2: it's nowhere near the same league. I do think that
Speaker 2: there's a lot of energy, you know, on the left,
Speaker 2: and we are creating their own media spaces. They're not
Speaker 2: like these big corporations, and I think that if you
Speaker 2: have a leader that's charismatic enough, they can override that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the one thing with Trump is it's,
Speaker 2: you know, like he got a lot of earned media media,
Speaker 2: you know, like because he.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, was a celebrity, free media, different media.
Speaker 2: But you could say that listening about Obama, like Obama
Speaker 2: became a genuine celebrity, and they very cleverly like they
Speaker 2: went on things that were political. Obama would go on
Speaker 2: sports podcasts, right listen to like tons of people, uh
Speaker 2: not people who like you know, normally pay attention to
Speaker 2: headlines or news. But you know, like people got the
Speaker 2: impression like, you know, Obama is this guy. Now I
Speaker 2: don't know if Biden this is you know, partially who
Speaker 2: he is, but it's also partially who he's chosen to be.
Speaker 2: He's chosen to try to be like the old style politician,
Speaker 2: you know, who tries to do backroom deals and work Washington.
Speaker 2: He can't do that, But I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: just on him. Like, I actually think this is like
Speaker 2: democracy depends on where they one person, And I do
Speaker 2: think that the Democrats have a strategy where they're putting
Speaker 2: their people like on these new media outlets and trying
Speaker 2: to reach people, you know, that can even the field
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is a really good point. I
Speaker 1: think about that a lot and just how important it
Speaker 1: is to sort of adjust that way. So what you're
Speaker 1: saying is a really good point about how really Democrats
Speaker 1: need to fill this vacuum. They need to focus on
Speaker 1: getting their guy out there. I do think that January one,
Speaker 1: people are going to wake up and be like, holy shit.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing is Trump is tweeting about Vermin.
Speaker 1: I mean, thank god Trump is not Ron DeSantis, thank god?
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I mean, well this is the thing. This
Speaker 2: is like the whole media vacuum that we're talking about.
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump it is like, you know, much more
Speaker 2: openly fascist than he's.
Speaker 1: Ever been than anyone, Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's sort of like, you know, hinting at you know,
Speaker 2: he'll like execute the top brass of the Pentagon. You know,
Speaker 2: it's really wild stuff. And I gotta say, my whole
Speaker 2: sense is it's not circulating. It's not you know, certainly
Speaker 2: the Republican media is a lot picking up on it.
Speaker 2: But the more you know, neutral or democratic media, it's
Speaker 2: not what people are talking about. All the polling would
Speaker 2: indicate it's not resonating, and you have to figure out
Speaker 2: a way to make that the top issue and make
Speaker 2: it resonate. I feel like it's all going to tighten
Speaker 2: up a lot when it is, you know, Biden versus Trump,
Speaker 2: that's what it is. I think, you know, like a
Speaker 2: front ports campaign is not going to work just and
Speaker 2: I know there are reports like in political and elsewhere
Speaker 2: like this is what the White House is thinking. You know,
Speaker 2: It's like that's not the reality. That's certainly how Democrats
Speaker 2: have won elections over the last three years. And I
Speaker 2: think the only hope I can see is if you
Speaker 2: bring out the whole team, Like if you just bring
Speaker 2: out everyone who's like a heavy hitter, just put them
Speaker 2: out there all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, jid, here we're going to be doing this a lot,
Speaker 1: so please forgive me. Thanks for coming on. Can't wait
Speaker 1: to have you back.
Speaker 2: Okay, always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Ben Mazick is the author of Breaking Twitter, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover and History. Welcome Ben
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Hey, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: So the book is called Breaking Twitter and Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and the most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History, which it
Speaker 1: really is. Talk to me about how you decided to
Speaker 1: write this book.
Speaker 3: I try and write stories that are about big moments
Speaker 3: in either cultural history or technological history. Things that you know,
Speaker 3: the world is changing, and these are those moments, those
Speaker 3: origins of some big change. And obviously Elon taking over
Speaker 3: Twitter became a very, very big story. I got interested
Speaker 3: in it. On the one hand, I was a big
Speaker 3: fan of Elon Musk in that I thought he's someone
Speaker 3: who's trying to push us forward. Previous to him taking Twitter,
Speaker 3: he was, you know, the genius behind Tesla and SpaceX.
Speaker 3: He was whenever you talked about him, he was, you know,
Speaker 3: in the same sentence as like Edison or one of
Speaker 3: the great entrepreneurs of our time. And then he dove
Speaker 3: into Twitter, and it just spiraled out of control. In
Speaker 3: my opinion, and from a cinematic point of view, it
Speaker 3: was just kind of a movie being written in front
Speaker 3: of me, and I'm always looking for very cinematic stories.
Speaker 3: And then a lot of people just started coming to
Speaker 3: me who had either been just fired or were still
Speaker 3: working with him, or people even on his team, who
Speaker 3: were just saying, this is so crazy. Someone should write
Speaker 3: about it. And I started to hear the stories, and
Speaker 3: then someone from Hollywood reached out, so it kind of
Speaker 3: all came together and I dove in and started writing it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because I was at Twitter before
Speaker 1: it happened. You know, he like made the offer, and
Speaker 1: then there were a couple of months where I was like,
Speaker 1: will here or won't he right? And I was there
Speaker 1: and I was talking to them and everyone. The consensus
Speaker 1: was it was not going to happen, right, And it
Speaker 1: seemed like it was not going to happen, and he
Speaker 1: was going to have to pay this wildly enormous kill fee.
Speaker 1: And then one day it did happen. So what happened there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, he went in for a couple reasons,
Speaker 3: and so in my view and from all the research
Speaker 3: I've done. He really felt like he was going in
Speaker 3: for the right reasons, where there was this woke mind
Speaker 3: virus sweeping across Twitter and it was moderating conservative voices
Speaker 3: and free speech was dying, and he believed that there
Speaker 3: had to be this organ of free speech for us
Speaker 3: to get to Mars. It's kind of a convoluted theory,
Speaker 3: but the idea is that we have this window open
Speaker 3: in which we can get to Mars and become interplanetary
Speaker 3: and save us from some sort of civilization ending doom.
Speaker 3: And to do that, he needed to save Twitter. So
Speaker 3: that was his initial reasons for getting in, but he
Speaker 3: wasn't taking it all that seriously. He made a crazy
Speaker 3: offer which was way too much money, and very quickly
Speaker 3: he started getting pushed back from Tesla insiders who saw
Speaker 3: that he was going to have to sell shares and
Speaker 3: divide his attention. And this was the first time this
Speaker 3: kind of group of faithful people pushed back at him,
Speaker 3: and that, combined with the idea that he realized he
Speaker 3: was paying way too much for it, made him change
Speaker 3: his mind and he decided to get out of it,
Speaker 3: and he claimed it was all about bots. He didn't know,
Speaker 3: there were so many bots of it. You know, there
Speaker 3: were a lot of bots. But then they sued him.
Speaker 3: They came to him and said, you have to take
Speaker 3: us over, and it became this battle between their lawyers
Speaker 3: and him and his lawyers, and he would have to
Speaker 3: pay this crazy fee to get out, which he should
Speaker 3: have done, probably.
Speaker 1: Right, which still would have saved him forty billion dollars
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 3: Well worse than that. And the whole concept of my
Speaker 3: book is that, you know, Elon must didn't break Twitter.
Speaker 3: Twitter broke Elon Musk. It ruined his reputation, It ruined
Speaker 3: him for half the country. You know, it was not
Speaker 3: worth it at all. This this is a horrible move,
Speaker 3: but at that point it became a thing of pride
Speaker 3: and he decided to take it, and he took it angrily,
Speaker 3: and that's why he sort of crashed through the gate reluctantly.
Speaker 3: But once he was there, he just started burning it down.
Speaker 1: How does he service this debt? I mean wildly overpaid,
Speaker 1: probably about twice maybe three times what it was really worth.
Speaker 1: I mean, doesn't he have to service like a billion
Speaker 1: dollars a debt every month?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy. They're trying to rewrite history and saying
Speaker 3: that Twitter was already on its last legs. And the
Speaker 3: reality was financially Twitter was doing fine. It was very
Speaker 3: close to break even, if not break even. I mean,
Speaker 3: it wasn't making tons of money, but you know, nothing is.
Speaker 3: And then he came in and because of the debt structure,
Speaker 3: it's suddenly losing money from the minute he walks in
Speaker 3: the doors and then he chases all the advertisers away.
Speaker 3: So not only did he overpay, but he cut their
Speaker 3: revenue so enormously that they themselves now value it at
Speaker 3: eighteen billion dollars, which is probably an inflated valuation, and
Speaker 3: so it's more than half declined from where he started.
Speaker 3: So yes, he has to keep sort of it alive.
Speaker 3: All the banks are looking at a huge write off
Speaker 3: on this, and that's why he's doing all these crazy
Speaker 3: things to try and make it profitable. So even though
Speaker 3: he came in with these intentions of noble reasons, it
Speaker 3: becomes an effort just how do we monetize all of this?
Speaker 3: And so you can see him lashing out in ways
Speaker 3: trying to monetize, trying to monetize, which is just making
Speaker 3: the situation worse and worse.
Speaker 1: I have so much trouble imagining that he came in
Speaker 1: for noble reasons. But what do you think of the
Speaker 1: sort of theory of the case that he came in
Speaker 1: because he was mad that he had a trans kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's definitely part of it. It was
Speaker 3: the Babylon be tweet where you know, the Babylon being
Speaker 3: made a joke about the trans Health Department person, and
Speaker 3: Elon has a child who is trans and has a
Speaker 3: bad relationship with that child, and so I think there's
Speaker 3: something to that for sure. I mean, I think that
Speaker 3: was the thing that pushed him over the edge. I
Speaker 3: think I'm more generous to Elon maybe that you are,
Speaker 3: certainly that some people are. I really really did formally
Speaker 3: drink the kool aid in that I really thought that
Speaker 3: his general intentions are good because of his worldview. I
Speaker 3: think he really thinks the world is one big simulation,
Speaker 3: that he's the main player. He's there to save the world.
Speaker 3: He's a hero of the story, and none of us
Speaker 3: even exist, we're all non playing characters.
Speaker 1: Will you say more on that, because you told me
Speaker 1: about this the other night and I'm just totally traumatized
Speaker 1: by it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so simulation theory, you know, is the basic idea
Speaker 3: that mathematically it actually makes sense that the world is
Speaker 3: not real because if you take into account that as
Speaker 3: we develop as a technology and as a civilization, we
Speaker 3: make video games that are more and more realistic. And
Speaker 3: because of the way video games work, you don't just
Speaker 3: make one playing field, but you make billions, and it
Speaker 3: actually trends towards infinite. As technology gets better, you make
Speaker 3: more and more and more of these fake worlds, and
Speaker 3: they're more and more and more realistic. And so the
Speaker 3: idea is, as civilization progresses, you actually reach a point
Speaker 3: where the odds are what you're doing right now is
Speaker 3: playing an incredibly sophisticated video game. Because there are billions
Speaker 3: of these, the idea that you're in base reality becomes
Speaker 3: infinitely smaller and smaller possibility. So Elon buys into this theory.
Speaker 3: So the theory is that everything around us is just
Speaker 3: one big simulation. But not only that, he actually believes
Speaker 3: that he's the player in this game, because when you
Speaker 3: play a video game, most of the people you see
Speaker 3: in it are fake and only one person is real.
Speaker 3: But if you have an infinite number of video games
Speaker 3: and an infinite number of players in it, the odds
Speaker 3: that you're real become infinitely small. That's the math behind it.
Speaker 3: He believes he's the only real person.
Speaker 1: So he is real, But none of us are real.
Speaker 3: None of us are real. We're all just pixels, you know,
Speaker 3: when we think we're real, just like an advanced you know,
Speaker 3: AI like thing would think it was real, but we're
Speaker 3: just sort of being rendered in the video game of
Speaker 3: Elon Musk's life. I really think he buys into this.
Speaker 3: And I will say that, having interviewed and been and
Speaker 3: talked to many incredibly wealthy, successful people, everyone has this
Speaker 3: a little bit of a suspicion that the world is
Speaker 3: designed around them, because the more successfully are, you think
Speaker 3: to yourself, well, how could have gotten here? This is
Speaker 3: so unlikely when you start to think of the world
Speaker 3: as being designed around you. But I think Elon takes
Speaker 3: it to another level.
Speaker 1: This is incredibly stupid time to be alive. And I
Speaker 1: would like to weigh in that that is to play stupid,
Speaker 1: like shockingly impressively stupid thing to think. Obviously, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is smart. Is he as smart as we think he
Speaker 1: is discussed?
Speaker 3: I think he's brilliant in a certain way. I think
Speaker 3: he's a guy who who walks into sort of Tesla
Speaker 3: or SpaceX. He dreams incredibly big, but because he believes
Speaker 3: everything's faked that he can get there. So his optimism
Speaker 3: is part of it, and a little bit is delusion.
Speaker 3: But he truly is smart and he makes good decisions
Speaker 3: often when there's engineering problems by going for it. You know,
Speaker 3: he's willing to blow things up to get to where
Speaker 3: he's going. It's less that he's a genius in that
Speaker 3: he's incredibly good at getting really smart people to do
Speaker 3: smart things. Him in a room full of engineers can
Speaker 3: come out with an incredible outcome. It's not that he's
Speaker 3: necessarily making the thing, but he has this incredible ability
Speaker 3: to get a room full of engineers to do something
Speaker 3: they didn't think they could do. So I mean that's
Speaker 3: a form of genius. It's definitely something very impressive in
Speaker 3: the tech space. You know, he could have fled out
Speaker 3: many many times along the way, but somehow he gets
Speaker 3: the people around him to work beyond where they normally
Speaker 3: thought they could go. So it's a mix of sort
Speaker 3: of genius and just the ability to carve a path
Speaker 3: forward and the people around him follow him in that past.
Speaker 1: So he had been sort of flirting with the far right.
Speaker 1: Yesterday he sort of got married to them, went full
Speaker 1: anti Semi has a family history of anti Semitism, which
Speaker 1: again doesn't mean you'll be an anti semi, but it
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't help. What do you think about that.
Speaker 3: I talk about this a fair amount, and I never
Speaker 3: really see him personally as anti Semitic or racist, but
Speaker 3: I think he's very tolerant of anti semitic and racist memes,
Speaker 3: tweets and people. I think for him, he loves drama.
Speaker 3: I mean that's obvious. He loves controversy. He's turned Twitter
Speaker 3: into this outrage engine. I mean it's all about engagement
Speaker 3: and outrage, not about truth, not about journalism, not about
Speaker 3: anything that he came in saying it was going to
Speaker 3: be about. So I do think he pushes these buttons purposefully.
Speaker 3: It's a performative form of anti semitism more than it
Speaker 3: is you know, I hate Jews. I think he's one
Speaker 3: of those people who sees himself as being friends with
Speaker 3: many Jews, working well with many Jews, and is not
Speaker 3: personally anti Semitic. But when someone tweets something that is
Speaker 3: too many people obviously anti Semitic. He's willing to push
Speaker 3: that tweet forwards because either he thinks it's funny or
Speaker 3: he thinks it has a piece of truth to it.
Speaker 3: It doesn't affect him personally, so he doesn't see it
Speaker 3: that way. It's a hard for me anyways to look
Speaker 3: at him and say, okay, Elon Musk is anti Semitic,
Speaker 3: because I don't really think he is. But I do
Speaker 3: look at him and say, okay, he's completely tolerant of
Speaker 3: a lot of anti Semitic voices. And Twitter's become full
Speaker 3: and full. It's full on Nazism going on there. I
Speaker 3: mean I have seen more acause thedial at full on.
Speaker 3: Hitler is great on Twitter than I've ever seen on
Speaker 3: any website in my life. I mean, going all the
Speaker 3: way back to Reddit, four chan and the world stays there.
Speaker 3: It's kind of amazing that he's taken something that was
Speaker 3: so much a part of our lives in terms of news.
Speaker 3: And he used to go on Twitter and get the
Speaker 3: day's news from really smart people. And you know, if
Speaker 3: there was a hurricane going on, you could be on
Speaker 3: a rooftop tweeting help save me, and someone would come
Speaker 3: save you. And now you look at Twitter and it's
Speaker 3: just full on garbage dump and this wasn't the goal.
Speaker 3: I really really don't believe that Elon came in with
Speaker 3: these intentions. I think it got out of his control.
Speaker 1: So play this out for me, what happens next.
Speaker 3: I really do believe this has affected Elon personally. I mean,
Speaker 3: he reached such a low point that he locked himself
Speaker 3: in his office for a while and basically the people
Speaker 3: at Twitter was so concerned for his welfare they were
Speaker 3: going to call in a wellness check on him because
Speaker 3: they thought he was going to kill himself. This was
Speaker 3: after he tweeted that poll asking should I still be CEO,
Speaker 3: and to his shock, people said no. He really thought
Speaker 3: everyone loves him and he got booed on stage with Chappelle.
Speaker 3: So I know he knows that it's reached a point
Speaker 3: where his reputation has been destroyed. Half the country doesn't
Speaker 3: like him. He leans into it on the one side
Speaker 3: with a lot of right wing voices, with a lot
Speaker 3: of conspiracy theories and things like that and anti Semitism,
Speaker 3: But at the same time he's trying to resuscitate himself
Speaker 3: by bringing in Linda yak Garino, who's supposed to be
Speaker 3: the adult in the room with all the advertisers, but
Speaker 3: she has no power, she has no control, and she's
Speaker 3: just there because it's an opportunistic situation for her. And
Speaker 3: I believe she'll be gone, you know, within the next
Speaker 3: six to twelve months, she'll be gone. And then he gets,
Speaker 3: you know, Walter Isaacs in to write the big glowing
Speaker 3: biography of him, which sort of was part of this
Speaker 3: one two punch of reputational resuscitation. But I really think
Speaker 3: that Twitter is X as it's called now, is really
Speaker 3: spiraling down to something that's pretty much garbage. And I
Speaker 3: don't see advertisers coming back. I think engagement is going
Speaker 3: to continue to spiral down and the only people are
Speaker 3: they going to be on it are going to be
Speaker 3: people who are there for the entertainment or to try
Speaker 3: and sell something, but not for conversation because you get
Speaker 3: shouted out by all of the awful voices. So it
Speaker 3: becomes a subscription based site, it becomes a much smaller
Speaker 3: site that's probably the chat room of an everything app
Speaker 3: which he's trying to build, which is a dating website,
Speaker 3: which is a money website, which is payment structure that
Speaker 3: only a few.
Speaker 1: You know, does anyone want that?
Speaker 3: Just his fan base? I can't imagine anyone outside of
Speaker 3: his you know, cult, wanting to put their finances through Elon,
Speaker 3: someone who has, you know, acted very mercurially. I guess, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it would be crazy. Honestly, we trust Zuckerberg
Speaker 3: more than we trust Elon now, which is kind of
Speaker 3: a spectacular thing. So no, I don't think it will succeed,
Speaker 3: but I do think that's the direction it's going. And
Speaker 3: it's sad because I think that Twitter we knew is
Speaker 3: becoming less and less usable by the day, and we'll
Speaker 3: drift away, It'll be gone.
Speaker 1: You think he builds an everything app for his people.
Speaker 1: They are happy to have it because they love him
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 3: And then why I think what happens is Elon has
Speaker 3: to claim victory in some way and then walk away
Speaker 3: from it. I mean, I really think the best thing
Speaker 3: that could.
Speaker 1: Happen thanks take it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he leaves.
Speaker 3: He gives it back to Jack Dorsey or something like that,
Speaker 3: who tries to rebuild what Twitter used to be. You know,
Speaker 3: none of the clones in my mind have succeeded in
Speaker 3: any way yet. I think at some point, hopefully someone
Speaker 3: will make something that was equivalent to old Twitter, but
Speaker 3: more likely Elon will claim victory and either spin it
Speaker 3: off and it'll rebuild itself, or it'll disappear, or it'll
Speaker 3: just be much smaller. But I don't think it can
Speaker 3: it can succeed with him running it the way he's
Speaker 3: running it, and I think he'd have to step away
Speaker 3: from it for it to succeed.
Speaker 1: So you think he'll make it look like he succeeded
Speaker 1: and then leave.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that's I think. I think he'll turn
Speaker 3: it into this everything app of some sort and then
Speaker 3: he'll essentially step away from it and Twitter. There will
Speaker 3: always be this kind of voice box running around, full
Speaker 3: of conspiracy theories and hate and him making his random
Speaker 3: tweet now and again, but the engagement will continue to
Speaker 3: dwindle downward. There's not going to be any journalists on there,
Speaker 3: there's not going to be any news sources on there,
Speaker 3: there's not going to be any real celebrities on there.
Speaker 3: The devastation of what the brand was will continue to
Speaker 3: the point where people will forget what the brand was.
Speaker 3: I mean, he used to go on there and there
Speaker 3: would be you know, you'd be talking to someone who
Speaker 3: knew what they was talking about, right, And now you
Speaker 3: can't find that anymore. So either that'll migrate somewhere else,
Speaker 3: or that'll just be gone in a way, and everything's
Speaker 3: getting siloed. What was interesting about Twitter was it was
Speaker 3: the one place that wasn't siloed, where everyone kind of
Speaker 3: did interact with each other. But now it's more, you know,
Speaker 3: one person with his fans and another person with his fans,
Speaker 3: which is kind of how Instagram works. And I think
Speaker 3: that maybe there comes another place where everyone can interact
Speaker 3: with each other, or maybe he spins it off and
Speaker 3: allows it to come back to life.
Speaker 1: It is weird the idea that you would have a
Speaker 1: site that was both a bank a dating WhatsApp when
Speaker 1: you don't have like the very basic user trust.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not going to be able to succeed because
Speaker 3: he's chased everyone off. That would have, you know, been
Speaker 3: the reason it worked.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think he's got a group of faithful fans,
Speaker 3: as you know, you see, as I see, who are
Speaker 3: a lot of angry people who I don't know can
Speaker 3: make a site like that very successful because either there's
Speaker 3: not enough of them, or or they just seem to
Speaker 3: do whatever it is he tells him to do. So
Speaker 3: it seems weird, but you know, he's got a cult
Speaker 3: of celebrity, he's got people who love him, so he
Speaker 3: might be able to pull off some sort of everything
Speaker 3: app among that group. But yes, it seems like the
Speaker 3: wrong way to go about it would be to chase
Speaker 3: everybody away and turn it into this conspiracy laid and
Speaker 3: crap fest and then try and get everyone's credit card.
Speaker 3: It seems like that's not the best way to go
Speaker 3: about it, but that seems to be the direction he's going.
Speaker 1: What do you think about the next thing? Is this truck?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: The cyber truck?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean is there a lot riding on this?
Speaker 1: It seems like there is.
Speaker 3: I have mixed feelings about this stripcheck. I'll confess. I
Speaker 3: put my name on the list when the when it
Speaker 3: was first announced to see if I could get one.
Speaker 3: I don't think I'm moving high on that list, but
Speaker 3: I keep watching the different videos of it. I would
Speaker 3: this is the elon that I like. We probably differ
Speaker 3: on this, but I love the science fiction elon Who's
Speaker 3: you know, trying to get to space in some giant
Speaker 3: stainless steel rocket ship who's making a ridiculous truck that
Speaker 3: will drive itself around and you can shoot machine guns
Speaker 3: at it? Like I like that Elon.
Speaker 2: I love the.
Speaker 3: Drama of that Elon and the fun of that Elon.
Speaker 2: Who is that for?
Speaker 3: Okay, that's a great question. What's really intriguing about Elon
Speaker 3: is the electric car movement would be playing to the
Speaker 3: base that now dislikes Elon. Right right, the cyber truck,
Speaker 3: the truck side of it plays to the base that
Speaker 3: loves Elon, but the electric part of it still plays
Speaker 3: to the original base. So it's a question of, honestly,
Speaker 3: you know, you have to see it on the street
Speaker 3: and see how ridiculous it looks. Does it look ridiculous
Speaker 3: or is it gonna look cool?
Speaker 2: I really don't know.
Speaker 3: I've only seen videos so far, so you know, it's
Speaker 3: hard for me to make a statement about that. I
Speaker 3: think the idea of automatic driving cars is so powerful
Speaker 3: that if he succeeds in that, Tesla is the trillion
Speaker 3: dollar company and everything else kind of is dwarfed by that.
Speaker 3: Because the automatic cars that actually work and are great
Speaker 3: and everyone can to have, you know, that's a huge
Speaker 3: game changer. But whether it's this truck or just the
Speaker 3: regular tesla, I don't know. I'm intrigued by the truck.
Speaker 3: I actually do think it will probably have an audience
Speaker 3: for it. I mean, there's a lot of people who
Speaker 3: want them, and even if it's just a novelty, it
Speaker 3: will do well for a while. But it's got to
Speaker 3: work and it's got to be automatic for it to
Speaker 3: become a big game changer.
Speaker 1: This is so interesting. I can't wait to read the book. Ben,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much. Appreciate it. I know I
Speaker 3: feel like there's like a rebellion corner of twitter x
Speaker 3: trying to keep it alive and then everyone leaving. I
Speaker 3: really do think that he broke it and it broke him,
Speaker 3: but I don't think it's irredeemable. I'd love to see
Speaker 3: Elon go back to who he was and step away
Speaker 3: from this morass. But we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: John Rolston is the editor of the Nevada Independent. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: You've been here before, too fast politics.
Speaker 2: John, either so.
Speaker 1: Great to have you. I wanted you to come on
Speaker 1: because I think Democrats have a real problem in your state.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping you could talk about what the hell
Speaker 1: is happening in Nevada.
Speaker 4: Well, the thing is is that Democrats here, smart Democrats,
Speaker 4: are very, very worried. They see the trends that have
Speaker 4: been happening here since twenty sixteen, and even though they've
Speaker 4: been relatively small, you've seen slight moves to the right
Speaker 4: on the part of the Nevada electorate, and you've seen
Speaker 4: a loss of the Democratic lead over the Republicans by
Speaker 4: a few percentage points, especially in Clark County, which is
Speaker 4: where Las Vegas is, as you know, and where the
Speaker 4: Democrats have been dominant and had double digit registration leads.
Speaker 4: It's now under nine percent and going towards eight percent.
Speaker 4: Every little bit's going to matter in a presidential race
Speaker 4: that has been decided here the last two cycles by
Speaker 4: about two and a half points, and so they are
Speaker 4: very very concerned. Republicans think that the Biden is a
Speaker 4: slight fadeword here, but they think of certain things happen,
Speaker 4: then he can win Trump.
Speaker 1: Yes, it seems to me like your state is a
Speaker 1: perfect storm Democratic Party. So talk to me about the
Speaker 1: state of the Democratic Party in Nevada.
Speaker 4: So it's still pretty good. People think that the Red Machine,
Speaker 4: which is, you know, the house that Harry Reid belt
Speaker 4: Beltway fifteen years ago, and there's been a formidable force
Speaker 4: in Nevada politics and a model for others to follow.
Speaker 4: They think that now that Harry Reid has passed away,
Speaker 4: that it's just not there anymore.
Speaker 2: And that's just not true.
Speaker 4: And they believe that in twenty twenty two, when the
Speaker 4: Democrats won a lot and narrowly missed re electing a
Speaker 4: very very troubled incumbent who had been hit by by
Speaker 4: COVID and some other issues, so the Red Machine is alive,
Speaker 4: and well, they know what they're doing. They know how
Speaker 4: to find some real Democratic voters among this absolutely ocean
Speaker 4: of independent voters that have sprouted here in Nevada. But
Speaker 4: I have to say, Molly, I have been making fun
Speaker 4: of the Republican Party here for a long time. They
Speaker 4: are a real, you know, on gaggle of clowns and unprofessionals,
Speaker 4: and so it hasn't been a fair fight. But the
Speaker 4: team that Joe Lombardo, the new governor, the new Republican governor,
Speaker 4: has put together that helped him squeak by in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two is still around and they know what they're doing.
Speaker 4: A lot of this is copycat stuff right from the
Speaker 4: read machine, but they have done it and they are
Speaker 4: going to be a force next year.
Speaker 1: What you're saying is that the Republican Party has really
Speaker 1: gotten it shit together in your state.
Speaker 4: Well, the Republican Party is still pretty much as an
Speaker 4: institution in this day, a clown show, but the governor
Speaker 4: and his people have been smart enough to bring some
Speaker 4: of those people inside the tent and neutralize them while
Speaker 4: building an actually an actual professional political machine, which has
Speaker 4: not been seen here on the Republican side in a
Speaker 4: long time.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing. And then you have the demographic
Speaker 1: change in Nevada, which I think is really important and
Speaker 1: that's why this state should be a source of so
Speaker 1: much anxiety to all of us. But let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Everything is a source of anxiety.
Speaker 5: But yes, continue, yeah, I mean, listen, you know Nevada
Speaker 5: a lot of people and I'm sure you're not this way, Molly,
Speaker 5: think that Nevada some kind of alien world where people
Speaker 5: are not normal and there's bookers and slot machines on
Speaker 5: every corner, and it's it's a state that doesn't behave
Speaker 5: as others do.
Speaker 4: But really Las Vegas, which is you know, has Clark
Speaker 4: County has two thirds or more of the population, is
Speaker 4: a microcosm of the country. The demographic changes here. It's
Speaker 4: a real melting pot. The Hispanic vote has become usually
Speaker 4: important here, but they've been losing the Democrats, that is,
Speaker 4: incrementally on the Hispanic vote every cycle since twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: and so the Democrats are concerned about that. Now. A
Speaker 4: lot of people think this is you know, it's a
Speaker 4: year out, this is the usual bed wedding that goes on,
Speaker 4: and Adam Lax always claiming it fifty percent of Hispanic
Speaker 4: vote in twenty twenty two, and Catherine Cortes Maasto still
Speaker 4: did quite well, although not quite as well as for instance,
Speaker 4: Obama and then Hillary did here among the Hispanics. So
Speaker 4: they have concerns, and listen, they are still a formidable force.
Speaker 4: The Red machine is still run by the same people, Molly,
Speaker 4: who know what they're doing. But they're worried about the
Speaker 4: demographic changes that are going on across the country and
Speaker 4: are making Democrats very very anxious.
Speaker 1: And that's young Hispanic voters.
Speaker 4: It is mostly yet.
Speaker 1: Which again is not a monolist. Hispanic voters can be
Speaker 1: from Cuba, they can be from Puerto Rico. They have
Speaker 1: different needs, they have different wants. That's not a block, now,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely right.
Speaker 4: I think we in the political analysis field often describe
Speaker 4: these demographic groups as monolists, and they're not. And Hispanics
Speaker 4: are perfect example of that. You know, most of the
Speaker 4: ones here are Mexican immigrants, but there are Cubans here
Speaker 4: and they tend to be a little bit more conservative.
Speaker 4: But let me just give you a perfect example of
Speaker 4: what I'm talking about. With the Republican governor's team. They've
Speaker 4: essentially co opted one of the most prominent Hispanic leaders
Speaker 4: in this state, a guy named Peter Guzman, who is
Speaker 4: the head of the Latin Chamber of Commerce and it
Speaker 4: wants to be a political player.
Speaker 2: And the governor.
Speaker 4: He is on the governor's team essentially, and then is
Speaker 4: in some small way, how small, how marginal, I don't know,
Speaker 4: going to help them.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point. So let me
Speaker 1: ask you, if you're in Biden world right now, what
Speaker 1: are young Hispanic voters in Nevada? What do they need?
Speaker 1: What do they want? What are they looking for? Democrats
Speaker 1: to provide for them.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think it's that different than any other place.
Speaker 4: They're looking for an improvement in their economic lot. Even
Speaker 4: though as you know, there's been a lot of negative
Speaker 4: media coverage of the economy in this country. It is
Speaker 4: rebounded pretty well on a lot of the indicators.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty good.
Speaker 4: But Nevada was crushed by the COVID epidemic because we're
Speaker 4: essentially a one trick pony, right Like, our entire economy
Speaker 4: is dependent on this little strip of land called the
Speaker 4: Las Vegas Strip, and it's shut down for a few months,
Speaker 4: and so our unemployment rate went way up into into
Speaker 4: like fifteen eighteen percent range. It's way down now, but
Speaker 4: it's still the highest in the country. And a lot
Speaker 4: of Hispanics are workers in the casinos. Not all of
Speaker 4: them have gotten their jobs back, younger Hispanics, and so
Speaker 4: they're not thrilled about what's happened. Well, you've been around
Speaker 4: long enough. It's not fair to blame presidents for the economy,
Speaker 4: but they do. They point at who's the most prominent
Speaker 4: figure they can, whether it's a governor or president, depending
Speaker 4: on the cycle, and that person either gets the credit maybe,
Speaker 4: but definitely gets the blame.
Speaker 1: Some of the things that voters have really voted on
Speaker 1: in the last couple elections have been abortion right, have
Speaker 1: been government overreach when it comes to the social issues,
Speaker 1: Like if you look at Florida, you have Desanta's like
Speaker 1: don't say a gay deciding what books people can read,
Speaker 1: what is taught in schools. I mean, do you think
Speaker 1: that message resonates in your state?
Speaker 4: I do, And especially on abortion. I think you could
Speaker 4: make a pretty convincing argument that abortion of that issue
Speaker 4: saved Catherine Cortes Massto in twenty twenty two. Now, it's
Speaker 4: not often that you're going to have a candidate as
Speaker 4: dumb as Adam Laxel to say on take Roe versus
Speaker 4: weight was always a joke, and they have that audio
Speaker 4: and they can play that over and over again. But
Speaker 4: whoever the Republicans nominate in that Senate race, which is
Speaker 4: going to be a marquee Senate race because Jackie Rosen
Speaker 4: is considered a target, is going to be very much
Speaker 4: pro life and this is a pro choice state. That's
Speaker 4: another thing people don't realize about.
Speaker 2: In Nevad.
Speaker 4: We have had a referendum here more and more than
Speaker 4: thirty years ago in which they cemented the twenty four
Speaker 4: week statute in place. It can only be changed by referendum,
Speaker 4: and the Democrats aren't going to rest on that. They're
Speaker 4: going to try to get a referendum up again in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four to put those protections in the state constitution.
Speaker 4: I think they think that if it's not a silver
Speaker 4: bullet for them, it is going to help push very
Speaker 4: close races in their favor, and if history is a guide,
Speaker 4: they may be right now again all the caveats that
Speaker 4: go with it being, you know, in November of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three. I think they're banking on that based on
Speaker 4: what their messaging has been so far.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like to me what is really important
Speaker 1: right now with Nevada is that it's not taken for granted.
Speaker 1: The Democrats focus on registering voters, speaking to young Hispanic voters,
Speaker 1: trying to get ahead of what does seem like a
Speaker 1: real demographic shift.
Speaker 4: I think all of that is true, and I think
Speaker 4: they are helped by if the Lombardo machine is the
Speaker 4: competitor to the read machine. The Lombardo machine is much
Speaker 4: more focused on state legislative races than they are on
Speaker 4: the Senate race or the presidential race, because the governor
Speaker 4: is facing potential supermajorities in both houses of the legislature,
Speaker 4: so they will be distracted, they will not be as
Speaker 4: invested in that, and I think that helps the Democrats
Speaker 4: to some extent because they're just focused on isolated districts.
Speaker 4: Doesn't mean they can't be effective, but they care much
Speaker 4: more about making sure that there are no supermajorities in
Speaker 4: the legislature because that makes the governor essentially irrelevant, as
Speaker 4: you know, because they can they can override any veto.
Speaker 4: So that's their main focus and so that is in
Speaker 4: some intangible way an advantage for the Democrats as well.
Speaker 4: But you know, listen, they got to get their base out.
Speaker 4: They've got they've got to make sure that the Hispanics
Speaker 4: still are voting in great numbers for their candidates. And
Speaker 4: that means you're right, young Hispanics, but young voters in
Speaker 4: general too. They are trying to mobilize in different ways.
Speaker 2: That's not that easy to do these days.
Speaker 1: As you know, what does this state look like demographically, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I mean, are you asking for you know, Democrats, Republicans, young, old,
Speaker 4: all of it.
Speaker 1: Clark County is the sort of population center, and then
Speaker 1: the rest is rural and red or I mean, that's
Speaker 1: how most states are, but I'm just curious.
Speaker 4: So NOVED, I always say, is essentially three states when
Speaker 4: it comes to statewide elections and presidential elections. There is
Speaker 4: Las Vegas Clark County, which, as I said, is two
Speaker 4: thirds of the vote, which were Democrats have an advantage,
Speaker 4: not as great as it once was, but substantial. Eight
Speaker 4: and a half percent is still substantial. Then there are
Speaker 4: fifteen rural counties in between Las Vegas and the other
Speaker 4: urban center, which is Reno. And those rural counties are
Speaker 4: all very red, some of them so red that you know,
Speaker 4: they want to name buildings after Donald Trump or streets
Speaker 4: after Donald Trump. That's how red they are. Then there's Reno,
Speaker 4: which is in wa r County, which is about fifteen
Speaker 4: percent of the vote, eighteen percent of the vote Walley
Speaker 4: and that's the swing county in Nevada. That is shit
Speaker 4: that it used to be fairly reliably read. But you know,
Speaker 4: Killery one Washae County, Biden one Washoe County, even Catherine
Speaker 4: Courtes mass though one Washoe County, which is where Adam
Speaker 4: Laxall supposedly lives. I don't really think he lives very
Speaker 4: often in Nevada, but that's where he supposedly lives. Still,
Speaker 4: she won that. So it's essentially three states. And the
Speaker 4: way you win a statewide election here if you're a Democrat,
Speaker 4: as you build up a big enough lead in Clark
Speaker 4: County because of the advantage there, to head off the
Speaker 4: twelve percent of the landslide the vote that you're going
Speaker 4: to lose in the rurals, and then hope you can
Speaker 4: break even in Washoe County. That's the prescription that's been
Speaker 4: used for decades. It almost didn't work for Catherine courtes
Speaker 4: Mass though, but it did by eight thousand votes.
Speaker 1: So there's a Senate seat in this race that's up.
Speaker 1: It is really this map is a shit show. I
Speaker 1: mean it's actually it's not a shit show. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say that. As long as Democrats can hold on to
Speaker 1: Montana and Ohio with shareon, they all be okay. But
Speaker 1: they really need to win that rosen Seed. Is rosen
Speaker 1: a better candidate than Cortez Mastow and will she suffer
Speaker 1: some of the same problems? I mean Cortez Masto again,
Speaker 1: she did get reelected.
Speaker 4: So she did, you know what, I guess it depends
Speaker 4: how you define better. Catherine Court does mass have been
Speaker 4: in politics a lot longer than Jackie Rosen has. I mean,
Speaker 4: Jackie Rosen was like an accidental candidate for Congress when
Speaker 4: Harry Reid and his slops were looking through the phone
Speaker 4: book to find somebody, and they got Jackie Rose who
Speaker 4: then won and then ran for the Senate the very
Speaker 4: next cycle and beat Dean Heller in twenty eighteen pretty decisively. Actually,
Speaker 4: she has less baggage per se than Catherine Court as
Speaker 4: Master did because she hasn't been in politics as long.
Speaker 4: She's put up a pretty organization around her. They know
Speaker 4: what they're doing. The real problem that even if people
Speaker 4: thought that Animal Assault was a great candidate because of
Speaker 4: the name and former attorney general and the rest of it,
Speaker 4: he really wasn't. They have really struggled this time, the
Speaker 4: National Republicans to find someone, and they're putting all of
Speaker 4: their hopes in Sam Brown, who has never won a
Speaker 4: race either here or in Texas. And while he has
Speaker 4: a great story to tell us as this you know,
Speaker 4: scarred veteran hero, he has not been here very long.
Speaker 4: He's taken some contradictory positions, and he's got to win
Speaker 4: a primary where there is a you know, one of
Speaker 4: the most far right maga crazies who has a base
Speaker 4: who almost want a statewide race. Frighteningly enough, last cycle,
Speaker 4: I think Sam Brown, if he gets out of that primary,
Speaker 4: has a chance against Jackie Rosen, just because of the
Speaker 4: demographics of the state and what we've been talking about.
Speaker 4: But there's no evidence that he's a very strong candidate.
Speaker 4: He's never won anything. Imagine in a key center race
Speaker 4: in the country, Republicans are banking on a guy who
Speaker 4: hasn't even been in the state very long and has
Speaker 4: never won a race.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, luckily, you know, it's not my problem,
Speaker 1: but that seems like a terrible plan for Republicans. But uh,
Speaker 1: let's not tell them though.
Speaker 4: It's the only one they've got. That's the issue. Because
Speaker 4: of how successful the Democrats have been in this state
Speaker 4: over the last few cycles, the Republicans don't have much
Speaker 4: of a bench, and so this is what they're stuck with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean Adam Laxaw was just an amazing
Speaker 1: candidate because he did seem so unhanded.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's a terrible candidate. He was an embarrassment to
Speaker 4: his family, which split and then endorsed Catherine Cortez mass All,
Speaker 4: just as they endorsed Si Silac before him. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean he did become increasingly unhandsive. He's just a
Speaker 4: right wing talking points machine, and once you get him
Speaker 4: off of that, he's going to say something like Roe
Speaker 4: versus Wade was always a joke. Actually, the look on
Speaker 4: his campaign advisors when they heard that one Adam lack
Speaker 4: Salt was seen by the national media some kind of
Speaker 4: really great candidate.
Speaker 2: He wasn't.
Speaker 4: But don't forget even though he was not, he still
Speaker 4: almost won that race.
Speaker 2: Yeah, back a court.
Speaker 4: That's mass though, who is a good candidate and ran
Speaker 4: a good campaign.
Speaker 1: I hope that Nevada can be on the national radar
Speaker 1: because treating it like a FETA complete is really a mistake.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not that they're not even close to a
Speaker 4: FATA complete. If Sam Brown is out of the primary,
Speaker 4: it'll be it should be a real race because as
Speaker 4: you know, it doesn't matter how much money he can raise.
Speaker 4: It's the outside resources that are going to drive that race,
Speaker 4: and there'll be tens of millions of dollars poured in.
Speaker 4: But if Sam Brown does not win that primary by
Speaker 4: some chance, it's not remote either. He has a chance
Speaker 4: to lose. The Republicans wording waste a dine year because
Speaker 4: none of their other candidate says any chance in the
Speaker 4: general election.
Speaker 1: When is your primary in June? June, so we have
Speaker 1: a little time to obsess about this, John, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming on. I really felt like it was
Speaker 1: an important story. That state is a nailbier. Democrats need
Speaker 1: to continue to focus on it. It really is the
Speaker 1: juggernaut of the problem with you Democrats appealing to Hispanic voters,
Speaker 1: and if they can't do that, they're going to eventually
Speaker 1: lose the country.
Speaker 4: You're absolutely right, and I love talking about this and
Speaker 4: I love coming on with you, Molly.
Speaker 2: It's always fun to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming you bet they're no moment, Jesse Cannon,
Speaker 1: Molly jong Fest. You know there is a blast from
Speaker 1: the past. Yeah, many evil families in this country, but
Speaker 1: this one is it's almost like a sleeper cell at
Speaker 1: this point that they've been gone for a little while
Speaker 1: in the news, but they're back as a person with
Speaker 1: a very large forehead. Whenever she comes back into the news.
Speaker 1: I'm very conflicted because she's evil, but she does also
Speaker 1: have a large forehead, so when I see her, I'm
Speaker 1: reminded of my own enormous forehead, the one, the only
Speaker 1: Rebecca Mercer. She's back. They are absolutely the most evil family.
Speaker 1: You may remember them from giving tons of money to Breitbart.
Speaker 1: They are giving eighty eight point four million dollars. It's
Speaker 1: a little known eighty eight point four million dollar war
Speaker 1: chest that is going to have a sizable impact on
Speaker 1: the election, and they are going to give it to
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump because well, a lot of voters don't
Speaker 1: like fascism. The Mercers their fans, and they are the
Speaker 1: return of the Mercers, putting back the Death Star. They
Speaker 1: are our moment of Fuckerray. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
Speaker 1: to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of
Speaker 1: all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please
Speaker 1: send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.